The Journey to Jewtown

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I don’t know how many times I’ve ridden the underground Métro without noticing it, but while I was in Paris last week, looking for line 7 in the Louis Blanc station in the city’s northeast, something caught my eye.

Métro lines, like train and bus lines everywhere, are often known by the names of their last stops (when I first came to know Paris, this was the only way they were known), and the stairs descending to the southbound route of line 7 bore the sign “Villejuif—Ivry.” Once on the train and studying the map of the route, I saw that much farther on, at the Place d’Italie, it split in two, one arm continuing to Villejuif, the other to Porte d’Ivry and Mairie d’Ivry.